The Alchemists Lament
by Thunder Druid
Summary: After the tradgedies of last year, hope has started to fade in the wizarding world... but Harry gets some help that may change the tide of the war... FMAxHP crossover and PostHBP


London was buzzing with noises and people. Store doors were opening and closing and cars were speeding up and down the roads, often getting into traffic jams. A boy and a suit of armor walked on a sidewalk after having spent the night at a nice Inn that charged an arm and a leg. Luckily, this isn't literal. The boy had blond hair tied into a ponytail, a red jacket with a peculiar symbol on the back, white gloves, a black shirt, pants, and boots. The suit of armor was completely empty inside, save for a transmutation circle that bonded a boy's soul to it. All in all they were a very unusual sight to see on the streets of London. People gaped at them as they strolled past, unaware that the suit of armor was empty, but still in wonder at them.

"Edward, people are staring at us again..." whispered the armor. The blond haired boy shrugged his shoulders and put his arms behind his head.

"Let them stare, Al. It's not like it affects us any." he replied in a carefree manner. His mood seemed to change suddenly, and he lowered his arms to his sides. "Anyway, why did we have to come here again? It's not like this stupid letter Roy found addressed to us is anymore than a joke or a trick."

"Although it sounds odd, maybe we're on to something with this, Brother," responded Al. "We could actually find a way to get us back to normal." Ed, the boy in the red jacket incase you didn't know, groaned.

"Yeah, like there's something that could do that other than alchemy?" he said, trying to dismiss the entire issue. "I'm so going to get the Colonel back for this wild goose chase."

"Can't you accept that there just might be something out there other than science?" asked Al, getting flustered at his brother. Ed didn't even have to think to answer that one.

"Nope," he said curtly. "But looks like we found the Leaky Cauldron place." he pointed to a tiny, grubby looking pub. "Now that looks like a joke..."

"That's the place we're supposed to go into?" asked Al in shock. Edward opened a letter he had been caring around. Inside was a list of instructions and several other pieces of parchment telling them all these weird school supplies they both needed to purchase.

"Yeah, says here some guy named Hagrid is going to help us get supplies for the magic school." said Edward looking down at the letter, then back up at the pub. "Well, guess it's in we go, Alphonse." Al nodded and followed Ed into the building. A whole bunch of oddly dressed people stopped what they were doing to look at Ed and Al, then, as if not surprised by a huge suit of armor; they turned back to their meals, drinks, and conversations. Ed noticed that a lot of the people were wearing cloaks and pointed hats. A man who was only a bit more massive than Al, and whom was quite tall, stood up and came over to them.

"Well there you two are! I've been lookin' for yeh all day!" said the man whom Ed instantly realized must be Hagrid. "I'm Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts." He held out an enormous hand to Ed who shook the hand firmly with his right. "Wow, yeh got quite a grip."

"Thanks I guess..." said Edward, whose right arm was completely mechanical. Hagrid turned towards Al and shook his hand.

"Nice to meet you." said Al politely when the handshake ended.

"Well we best be going. Got lots to do," said Hagrid with a smile and started to usher Ed and Al towards to bar area.

"Now wait just a minute!" shouted Ed. He had been feeling swept up with all that was happening until now and he didn't handle that feeling very well at all. "I want to know more about this whole magic junk." Hagrid looked taken aback, which he was. Usually no one spoke to him like that with great reason, since Hagrid looked too tough. But here was this short boy already starting to order him around a little. He only hoped this wasn't a sign that Ed was destined for Slytherin.

"Brother!" said Al trying to stop Ed from being so rude. Ed ignored Al. He was doing more than being rude, he was trying to read Hagrid's reactions to find out more about this man. Hagrid chuckled.

"Okay, I'll tell yeh all about magic an' Hogwarts since yeh've been living with muggles an' all," he said. Ed and Al exchanged confused glances at the word use of muggles. Well, Al couldn't show his confusion, but Ed understood anyway. Hagrid went over to an empty table and they followed, sitting down across from the giant. "Well magic is just it, magic. Yeh use wands and the like. Hogwarts helps teh' teach young witches and wizards the art of magic. Any questions?"

"Yeah, I got one. Does that mean that in magic there's no equivalent exchange?" asked Ed. This just seemed to bewilder Hagrid. "Ah, never mind."

"All right, that it?" asked Hagrid, wanting to know if they had any more questions. Edward nodded. Hagrid stood up and the Elric brothers followed him through the bar and out into a small, walled courtyard. Only a trash can and a few weeds greeted them.

"Ah, Sherlock, this is a dead end." said Edward, his temper rising. Hagrid only grinned at him and tapped a brick with an umbrella he was carrying. The brick moved and in the middle, a small hole appeared and started growing larger. Ed and Al watched in amazement as they came face to face with an archway leading to a cobbled street.

"Welcome to Diagon Alley, Ed an' Al," said Hagrid as Ed walked over to the archway and touched one of the bricks. He could tell no alchemy had been involved in the moving of the bricks. He tried to figure out what had moved them, but Hagrid was already starting through the archway. He and Al followed him through quickly and the wall closed up behind them.

Human kind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value most be lost, that is alchemy's first law of equivalent exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one and only truth.

A girl around the age of fifteen stepped off a train, dragging a suitcase along with her. More people followed after her as she lugged the suitcase to a bench and sat down. Her blond hair fell into her face put she pushed it away with a sigh. It had been a long train ride even though she was used to such trips by now. It was more of the fact that she was by herself, going to some school she had never heard of that all of a sudden said she had magic qualities. She wished that Edward and Alphonse were here.

'I hope Ed will be okay with Granny Pinako taking care of his automail for a while.' she thought, resting on the hard wooden bench. With a groan, she stood up again and continued toting her suitcase out of the train station.

A black haired young man, sat tapping a phone in his office. He gave a sigh then leaned back in his chair. A woman stood next to his desk, looking over some official looking papers. Her face was serious and her hair was tied up in a ponytail. Both of them were from the military, and their clothes showed it. The man's name was Roy, and he was waiting for any reports of the elusive Scar who had been killing state alchemists left and right lately. Silence was filling the room and he felt like he was going to go insane.

"Did you send the Elric brothers on another wild goose chase sir?" asked the woman solemnly. Her name was Hawkeye and she was always by Roy's side. She glanced at the colonel to see his reaction to her question. They were alone in the room currently since it was lunchtime and they had both chosen to stay a bit longer to get some things done. Obviously nothing was getting done.

"I'm not completely sure." said Roy, leaning back in his chair and staring at the ceiling. "Looked more like some joke to me. If it is I think Full Metal might end up biting my head off." he grinned and stood up. "Anyways, enough of this! Time for lunch!" his face brightened, and he grabbed Hawkeye's hand, who gave a yell as Roy dragged her off towards the cafeteria.

Ed and Al continued to follow Hagrid though a large crowd of cloak wearing people. Surprisingly, no one at all goggled at Al, it was as if they had seen to many things like this before and it no longer fazed them.

"So where are we going first?" asked Ed in a polite way. He had his hands behind his usual relaxed position. Al wanted to smile at the fact that Edward could relax so easily with all the strangeness of this place encircling them at every turn. Weird things were stacked in windows of store shop and weird people were only inches from them. Some shops they passed were selling regular items such as parchment and quills, while others sold potion bottles, spell books, and very strange looking silver instruments.

"We have to take a quick stop to Gringotts, the wizard bank." said Hagrid as they passed a window with broomsticks in it. Al was constantly turning to look at both sides of the alleyway, since there were just so many things to see. "Here we are." There were just outside of a snowy white building that seemed to loam over the little shots of Diagon Alley. Ed and Al followed Hagrid past a weird thing that Ed believed to be a messed up chimera. They were ushered past a pair of bronze doors and then were facing another pair of doors that were silver. Something was engraved on to the doors, but before either Ed or Al could read what was written, then was again ushered inside by two other messed up chimeras. Once they were passed the silver doors they found themselves standing at one end of a vast marble hall. A huge amount of the weird looking chimera things were sitting on stools behind a very long counter.

"Morning." said Hagrid to one of them. Edward and Alphonse were starting to get nervous when the chimera thing Hagrid had spoke to, actually spoke back.

"Opening an account?" he asked with a sneer in Ed and Al's direction.

"Yes." said Hagrid, then turned to a startled Ed and Al. "Have yeh got any money with yeh? Forgot to ask before." Hagrid gave a sheepish smile. Ed nodded slightly and pulled out a wallet from his left pant pocket. In his right pocket rested his state alchemist watch, having been certified as one at the age of twelve and issued the name Full Metal. Hagrid grabbed the wallet and pulled out all the bills, then handed them to the goblin and gave Ed back his now empty wallet. Ed and Al sort of tuned out what was going on in favor to look around the room in amazement. A huge amount of doors were opening and closing as the odd chimera things led people past them. Finally Hagrid hurriedly led them out of Gringotts with a bag of money in one of his enormous hands. "Nasty little things, Goblins." he said with a shiver.

"Those were Goblins?" asked Al in surprise. He must have been thinking of them as chimeras like Edward. "I didn't know there were such things as Goblins."

"Well a'course yeh didn't, you came from a muggle family didn't yeh?" asked Hagrid, but didn't wait for a reply. Ed and Al were still confused as to what a muggle was. "Well, I best be going teh' pick up another student. Be back soon. Stay here, all right?" Ed and Al nodded, both stunned by the news about goblins. Edward normally wouldn't have thought of it as real, but as a trick. But right now he felt just so compelled to believe that what Hagrid said was true. Hagrid walked off in the direction of the archway to the Leaky Cauldron.

"Do you think what he said was true brother?" asked Al as they both wandered over to a random shop.

"I'm not sure what to believe Al. This place is just so weird. That archway that formed without alchemy, the chimeras that could talk that were really goblins, all these spell books. It could be real or some extremely elaborate joke." stated Ed and Alphonse nodded in agreement, his head making clunking noises. "I just hope that this means there might be some other way to get you back to normal." Al seemed startled by the fact that Ed was now agreeing with what he had said earlier.

"So you agree with me brother? That there could be something else out there?" questioned Al, in a very excited way. Ed shrugged his shoulders.

"I said I hoped Al. I don't know if there is or not, and I'm not going to believe something till I see it." Edward said, opening a door to a shop. Al followed him inside and both of them made sounds of awe at all the books that were now surrounding them. Spell books upon spell books stacked on shelves. It was still not nearly as big as the National Alchemy library in Central, but it was bigger then they would have expected. Not that anything had turned out in anyway the way they had expected. Ed started grabbing books off the shelves and Al followed. He thought over what Ed had said and felt like crying. He wasn't really sad but disappointed. But he couldn't blame Edward for wanting to make sure they weren't fooled or given complete false hope. Then again he really wanted to have that hope, even if it was false. With a sigh he opened a book and started reading, completely ignoring the fact that this wasn't a library. Ed had already commenced reading almost as soon as he saw the books. The door to the shop opened about half an hour later and Hagrid walked in. Someone else followed him, but Hagrid blocked him or her from view.

"There yeh two are! Been searching for yeh." said Hagrid with a grin at Ed and Al. Ed didn't even look up from his book, while Al stopped reading and but the book away. He was pleased to see them digging into the books. With the intensity that Ed was showing as he read, he was sure he wasn't going to Slytherin. It was more likely he would go into Ravenclaw. A girl stepped out from behind Hagrid. After getting off the train she had wandered around trying to find the Leaky Cauldron and had finally found it. After that she met up with Hagrid and he took her to the wizard bank to get the money she would need. The goblins actually hadn't surprised her, she had been more intrigued. But when she saw Ed and Al, she nearly had a heart attack.

"Edward? Alphonse?" asked Winry, her eyes wide. Ed actually looked up from his book with a start, and it fell out of his hands as soon as he saw her, Al jumped and nearly hit a bookshelf.

"Winry?" questioned Ed, jumping up from where he had been sitting on the floor.

"Well, glad teh' see yeh know each other." said Hagrid beaming down at them all.

"Wow, this money is weird." said Edward as Hagrid showed him what he needed to pay to buy his course books for the year. Winry was examining the ones called galleons, her eyes sparkling with happiness.

"They are so cool though!" she said hugging the coin. Ed and Al sort of backed away from her, scared. Ed counted out a couple of galleons and handed them to the bookstore owner. He had decided to go ahead and pay for Winry's things in exchange for her taking care of his automail while they were at school. Of course, he thought, it was still to be decided if Al, Winry, and him were even going to stay. Hagrid was lugging around Winry's heavy suitcase and Ed stacked up all of their books and handed them to Al.

"Ah...!" said Al in surprise when the books almost did a landslide. He and Ed managed to keep them balanced and they didn't fall. Now gripping the books extra tight, Al followed Ed, Winry, and Hagrid out of the shop.

"Well lets go teh' Ollivanders next. Only place teh' get wands, Ollivanders, and yeh got to have a wand to do magic," said Hagrid. Ed, and Winry exchanged looks of surprise, while Al was just surprised, not being able to show emotion and all.

"So cool!" said Winry, her face turning from surprised to excite. Ed and Al sort of backed away from her since this was one of the emotions where Winry was unpredictable. The only emotion that was worse was when she was angry; then you had to worry about whether or not you would live to see tomorrow. Soon they neared a narrow and shabby-looking shop with peeling gold letters over the door that read Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C. They all stepped inside and a bell rang from somewhere in the back. Hagrid sat down on a spindly chair that was one of the only things besides shelves in the store. Ed, Winry, and Al all shifted around nervously.

"Good Morning," said a calm soft sounding voice. Everyone jumped except for Hagrid, who looked like he would rather be anywhere but here right now. An old-looking man appeared before them, his silvery eyes examining them all very closely. Hagrid stood up.

"Well I just remembered a previous engagement. Yeh'll be fine gatherin' the rest of yer supplies I'm sure," he said and patted Ed on the shoulder. With that, he left the store. Ed and Winry both stared opened mouthed while Al mentally did, surprised to be left all alone when they had grown so used to Hagrid.

"Well, Mr. Elric, we'll start with you," said Ollivander, talking to Edward not Alphonse. Ed looked taken aback, wondering how this person knew his last name without Ed telling him. But this didn't surprise him for long. After all, he had been subject to weirder things even before today. "Which is your wand arm?"

"Huh? Well I use my left hand the most..." said Ed. He used to be right handed, but had ended up using his left hand more after he sacrificed his right arm to save his brother. Even after he had gotten used to the automail arm, he still continued to use his left to eat, write, and do other things.

"Hold out your left arm then." Ed complied and Ollivander pulled out a long tape measurer with silver markings from his pocket and started measuring Edward. He started from shoulder to finger, wrist to elbow, from Ed's shoulder to the floor, and kept on going. Winry and Al sort of backed into a corner and watched. The tape measure kept on measuring Ed as Ollivander walked over to a shelf and pulled down a small box. Ed stared with wide eyes as the measure continued to do it's job without anyone holding or moving it. "That will do." said Ollivander and the tape measure dropped to the floor. "Right, let's try this one." Ollivander opened a box and held out what looked like a stick. "Cherry wood, phoenix feather. Eleven Inches. It's excellent for charms. Take it and give it a wave."

"Ah...okay..." said Edward timidly taking the wand. He moved it up, but Ollivander snatched it right out of his left hand. Winry and Al were still huddled into a corner, watching this in amazement. Al had expected Ed to start yelling at Ollivander, but Ed was too out of it to do so. Ollivander already had another wand ready.

"Oakwood, dragon heartstring. Nine inches. Great for defense against the dark arts." The wand was handed to Ed, but was snatched away from him before he could even so much as move his wrist. "Birch wood, unicorn hair, seven and a half inches. Great for transfiguration." Ed grabbed the wand roughly and immediately red sparks shot out of the end, startling everyone but Ollivander. "Well, I say, that does make since. After all the height of the wizard usually is reflected by the length of the wand." A vein bulged in Ed's forehead, but before he could say anything such as what's that supposed to mean, Ollivander turned towards Winry. "Let's move on to Miss. Rockwell, shall we?"

Winry stepped forward from where she and Al had been huddled and Ed took her place, examining the stick now in his hand. The series of events that had happened to Ed now happened to Winry, only she proved harder to find a wand for. Finally she ended up with Oakwood, phoenix tail feather, twelve inches, which was supposed to be great for defense against he dark arts.

"Now for the younger Elric," said Ollivander wish a smile. Al jumped and quickly handed Ed all of their course books, whom almost fell over from the weight of them all, and then stepped forward. Ollivander did not measure Al, or even ask for him to remove his armor. He simply started handing him wands.

"Redwood, unicorn hair. Eleven inches. Great for transfiguration," said Ollivander handing him a wand. Al took it gently and red sparks shot out of the top.

"Ah!" cried Al in surprise, nearly dropping the wand.

"Hmm, I thought as much. Well that will be a total of twenty-one Galleons." Ed dug into the bag of money Hagrid had given him, nearly dropping all of the books in the process. Soon he managed to pull out twenty-one of the gold coins in the bag and handed them to Ollivander.

"Ah, bye!" called Al as Winry and Edward dragged him hurriedly out of the shop.

"He was creepy!" said Winry with a shiver. "It was almost like he could tell everything about you by looking at you long enough." Ed nodded in agreement.

"Done are yeh?" said Hagrid from behind, making all of them jump in surprise.

"Hagrid?" questioned Alphonse, his voice showing his surprise.

"Sorry for leaving like tha'. Sometimes Ollivander gives me the creeps," said Hagrid with what looked like a smile. It was rather hard to tell with his bushy beard. "Had teh' make up an excuse, too. Well, on teh' the next shop." Nervously, Ed, Al, and Winry followed him to a store that was selling what looked like cauldrons.

Soon they had everything on their lists except their uniforms and an owl, which Ed didn't like the idea of having. Hagrid led them through the now even more crowded Diagon Alley to a store that was rather big and had Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions written in gold letters on the front. These weren't peeling like on Ollivander's store, however. They all stepped into the shop. A squat, smiling witch dressed in all mauve ran up to them.

"Hogwarts, dears?" she asked, only addressing Ed and Winry. They nodded and Al shifted uncomfortably. Hagrid still hadn't seemed to have taken notice that Al was in a suit of armor, or rather was a suit of armor. The witch, whom they realized must be Madam Malkin, led Edward and Winry to a footstool in the far back of the store and indicated for Winry to stand on the stool. Madam Malkin slipped a long robe over her head and started pinning it to the right length without speaking while another witch came over to Edward.

"Please stand here," she said sweetly. Ed complied and the witch slipped a robe over his head like Madam Malkin had done to Winry.

"My, you're a bit short for a first year," commented the witch, just trying to make light conversation.

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING A TINY LITTLE RUNT WHO'S AS SHORT AS A MIDGET YOU OLD HAG?" shouted Ed, losing it completely for the first time that day. Al, all the way in the front of the store, shook his head in dismay. Winry had nearly fallen off her stool in surprise. The witch, looking frightened, tried to apologize, but Edward just wasn't listening to her anymore. His arms were folded across his chest and he looked like steam would start coming out of his ears any second.

"Well, you are all done dear," said Madam Malkin to Winry. Edward was already finished with his fitting and was still mad as hell. He paid Malkin for the robes and then he and Winry met up with Hagrid and Al at the front of the store.

"Well all yeh need now is an owl or another creature teh' deliver yer mail," said Hagrid with a smile, or what looked like a smile because of his beard and such.

"Can't we just use a phone?" asked Winry, curious as to why they would need an animal to deliver mail when they had electrics right at hand to use. After all, she loved everything to do with technology.

"There aren't any phones at Hogwarts," explained Hagrid. Winry's mouth dropped open and she sort of stared at Hagrid before finally getting over her shock enough to ask another question.

"But... but... there's still electronics, right!" she asked, feeling like her heart was about to fail. Hagrid shook his head. "Ah?" Edward and Al backed away from her a little bit, not sure what she was about to do. "Well as long as I can work on Ed's arm and leg, I'm fine." They both gave sighs of relief, then Ed realized what she had just said and a panicked expression spread across his face. Hagrid gave Winry a weird look.

"Work on his arm and leg?" he asked, confused, but before Winry could explain, Hagrid exclaimed, "Here we are!" They were right in front of a slightly small store, a sign over top said The Magical Menagerie in gold letters. They stepped inside the store, which was crowded with people buying pets of all colors and sizes. A beautiful owl caught Ed's eye but Winry was already over by another owl, scaring it with her exclamations of how cute it was.

"We just have to get this owl, Edward!" cried Winry. The owl, which was brown all over with dark green eyes, ruffled its feathers and stared straight at Ed as if begging him to say no. Meanwhile Winry was doing her usual puppy eyes for Ed. Alphonse shrugged his shoulders, which Ed took as a sign that he might as well get the owl so they didn't make Winry angry.

"Um, sure," said Ed, shrugging his shoulders as well. The owl's green eyes widened at this and the next thing Ed knew, Winry was hugging him.

"Thank you! Thank you!" With that she let go and took the cage the owl was in off the hook that was holding it. Hagrid was busy looking at some other animals as Ed paid for Winry's. The moneybag was now extremely light. Ed, Al and Winry walked out of the store, with Hagrid following seconds later.

"Well, I'll take yeh to the train station. The train for school students leaves a month from now but McGonagall, the Headmistress, wants yeh to be there early," said Hagrid, rocking on the heels of his boots a little. "The train's supposed to leave when yeh get there. No set time." During this explanation they had started making their way to the wall that led to the Leaky Cauldron.

"Why does he want us to be there early?" asked Alphonse. Hagrid shrugged his huge shoulders. There seemed to be a lot of that happening today...

"Blimey, I have no clue," he said. Silence fell over their group as they walked through the crowd of people. Soon they were at the archway, then past it, then back inside the Leaky Cauldron. Before long they were on their way to the train station.

It was difficult to log all the things that they had bought all the way to the train station and a massive relief to Ed and Winry when they finally got there.

"Here are yer tickets. To get in, walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten," said Hagrid, handing Ed three tickets and Winry's suitcase, which nearly made Ed fall over when Hagrid let go of it. "I'll see yeh at Hogwarts." He beamed at them all and then started off, leaving the train station.

"Ah! Bye Hagrid!" shouted Al after him. Hagrid waved, then turned a corner and they could no longer see him.

"Walk straight at the barrier? What is he trying to do? Give us all concussions?" exclaimed Edward, a vein bulging on his forehead.

"Maybe it's like the wall leading to Diagon Alley," suggested Al. People were now staring at the threesome as they walked towards platforms nine and ten.

"Alphonse is right. Maybe it's supposed to look normal but it opens up," said Winry. They passed platform eight then stopped in-between nine and ten.

"How do you get it to open up then?" asked Ed.

"Well, like Hagrid said, walk straight at the barrier. Maybe it opens up when you go to step through," said Alphonse in a calm tone of voice.

"Or, you end up running straight into a wall and going to the hospital," countered Edward, leaning against the barrier, but instead of him just leaning against a solid wall, he fell through it with a cry.

"Brother!"--"Edward!" cried Al and Winry together. They both looked at the wall, eyes wide and nervous before charging forward through it. They nearly rammed into Ed on the other side.

"Either we made it through or I hit my head so hard I'm dreaming this," said Edward, covering over his shock with sarcasm. A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform that they were now technically on which was totally deserted, save for them. Winry turned to look behind them and saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it.


End file.
